Twitter Corp seems to have figured out that it's at least a dress rehearsal for the news system of the future. That's good because that's what the potential is.

But what kind of news system says "Sorry we did something wrong. Try sending your tweet again in a minute" when you try to post a piece of news to it?

News is about what's new. Not what was new a minute ago. You can quote me on that (not that it's a great revelation).

Twitter once was cute, but that's in the past. Pushing around its partners doesn't make you warm and cuddly, and more and more they're pushing around users. And it's not okay that they're making a bid for exclusivity on the role of News System of the Future, and they can't even keep their servers running properly. Either you deliver the benefit of being the sole provider, or sorry (to paraphrase their error message) get the fuck out of the way.

For what it's worth, the bit of news I want to pass along is a story told by a Wallmart exec about how and why people buy baby formula at midnight. It's a parable for our times, not a happy one.